Tag Archives: Lynn Bartels

UPDATE: Well that was quick! The Denver Post is already out with an editorial (responding to our blog post perhaps?) about “why this matters.”

All this shows, however, is that Dean Singleton, the Post’s owner, is pulling strings from the top trying to help his buddy Michael Bennet. The campaign’s oppo is weak, and they need mileage out of this. Period. End of story.

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U.S. Senator Michael Bennet’s campaign decided to dump some of their opposition research on GOP challenger Darryl Glenn this week, and the mainstream media is handling it in a way that epitomizes their political bias.

In 2014, The Peak exposed then-Democratic Senator Mark Udall’s arrest for possession of amphetamines and a large amount of pot. Except for a small mention from Lynn Bartels, who wrote for The Denver Post at the time, the mainstream media ignored the story. Never mind that Udall was sentenced to a night in jail, six months probation and his car was permanently seized. The media turned a blind eye.

Fast-forward two years. The same media have an obsessive interest in some long-ago dropped charge, that is far less serious, involving the Republican candidate in the race. The same media that refused to cover Udall’s arrest and subsequent lies about the incident think it is a big deal that Glenn cannot remember a charge that resulted in no arrest, no jail time, no fine and no criminal record.

In the case of Republican the charges were dropped, yet it is still “news.” No so for the Democrat.

This has appeared as a scandal today in both The Post and The Colorado Springs Gazette, which each chose to ignore Udall’s misrepresentation of serious criminal charges when he was 20.

If that’s not evidence of media hypocrisy and a double standard that favors left wing candidates what is?

The Washington Post‘s “The Fix” by Chris Cillizza published a report on the best political reporters in each state, and some of our favorites from Colorado were on there. Lynn Bartels deservedly even made the opening paragraph. Here’s who made the cut:

Charles Ashby, Grand Junction Sentinel

Lynn Bartels, Denver Post

Sandra Fish

John Frank, Denver Post (we’d rather have Joey Bunch who at least takes a long look at the lefty talking points that come across his desk, unlike Frank)

Corey Hutchins (who?), State Integrity (what?)

Peter Marcus, Durango Herald

Nick Riccardi, Associated Press

Eli Stokols, KDVR

First, where are Joey Bunch and Kristen Wyatt? Second, we’ve never heard of Corey Hutchins. Putting Hutchins on a list with Lynn Bartels who everyone knows and loves? Come on.

But, the most interesting part of this list is who wasn’t on there…and, then, all of a sudden was. Sometime after the Washington Post story was first published (minus Eli Stokols), Stokols suddenly appeared on the list. Why was his name added later? Since he has deep roots in the leftosphere, we aren’t arguing that he doesn’t belong here, but we are saying we would love to be a fly on Cillizza’s wall when that change was made. So, we reached out to Cillizza and we will update you, PeakNation™, if he wants to give us a sneak peak into that decision.

There will be many photos of Cadman taking the reins today, but we felt this best showed the Cadman we know and love.

Today, Sen. Bill Cadman was elected President of the Colorado State Senate. He was unopposed, which is not surprising given the respect and admiration he’s garnered during his tenure in the state Senate. We offer Cadman a hearty congratulations on a well-deserved “promotion”.

To celebrate this exciting event, Cadman passed out #18 Broncos jerseys. Number 18 happens to be Broncos Quarterback Peyton Manning’s number. The significance of the number 18? It’s the number of GOP Senators in the Colorado State Senate – the number that delivered the Senate majority to Republicans for the first time in a decade.

In case you haven’t come across Sen. Cadman, he is best-known for his humor, but also his dedication to the people of Colorado. Or, as The Denver Post‘s Lynn Bartels put it:

Cadman was first elected to the Colorado House in 2000, where he served as the Majority Whip in the 2003-2004 legislative session. He served in the House until he was appointed to take Republican State Sen. Ron May’s spot in 2007. He easily won his seat in 2008.

Cadman laid out his priority for his tenure as “building a better Colorado”. If Cadman applies the same leadership to Colorado that he has in the Senate over the past few years, we know we’ll be in good hands.

Other Senate members in leadership include the following:

Sen. Ellen Roberts, Senate President Pro Tem

Sen. Mark Scheffel, Senate Majority Leader

Sen. Kevin Lundberg, Assistant Majority Leader

Sen. Randy Baumgardner, Whip

Sen. Vicki Marble, Caucus Chair

The new Senate leadership represents a unified (see jerseys), yet diverse crew. Diverse in ideology, in geography, and in gender, yet unified in purpose. Bartels seemed to approve, in particular, of the Roberts election on Twitter:

Sen. Cadman also appointed Republican Sens. Grantham and Lambert to the Joint Budget Committee. Sen. Lambert will chair the influential committee.

The Senate leadership announcements follow elections in the Colorado State House. Rep. Brian DelGrosso was elected unanimously to serve again as Minority Leader. Rep. Libby Szabo also was elected unanimously to serve as Assistant Minority Leader. Rep. Polly Lawrence was unanimously elected to serve as Minority Whip, and Rep. Lois Landgraf will serve as Caucus Chairwoman.

Rep. DelGrosso offered the following statement on his re-election:

“I am grateful to have the support and confidence from the House Republicans to continue to serve as Caucus Leader. We have made positives strides as a caucus and have significantly closed the gap between Republicans and Democrats in the House. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to advance the free market principles vital to Colorado’s continued recovery.”

Just a few days ago Chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party Rick Palacio told Colorado political mensch Lynn Bartels that Colorado Democrats broke the Republican wave (from The Denver Post):

“The untold story is Colorado didn’t get swept away in a GOP wave,” said Rick Palacio, chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party, pointing to what happened in other states.

Yet, as reported by The Durango Herald’s Peter Marcus, it didn’t take long after Tuesday’s Elections for Palacio to fire his executive director:

Frustration is building within the Colorado Democratic Party among some women who feel they should have more of a leadership voice.

The party lost one woman in a leadership role after chairman Rick Palacio fired executive director Jennifer Koch shortly after the election last Tuesday. [the Peak’s emphasis]

Nothing says “we didn’t just get our asses handed to us, no, really, we swear” like a quick firing. Everyone knows that after a big win, the next logical thing to do is fire the people that brought you that win.

But, failing epically trying to spin the 2014 Colorado elections might be the least of Palacio’s worries, as some Colorado Democratic women feel the true “war on women” is coming from within the Democrats own house. As Marcus reports:

At least four well-known Colorado Democratic women have been asked by their supporters to challenge Palacio following a lackluster election that saw several key losses for Democrats.

…All the Democratic women, however, said they would like to see more listening within the state and national party to women’s voices.

…“Women should be having more of a voice as to what’s going on and what effects them,” Boller said. “But I don’t want to get into a pissing match on this whole thing.” [the Peak’s emphasis]

Remember PeakNation™, all this internal turmoil is because of how well Palacio and Colorado Democrats did last Tuesday… according to Palacio.

Now, these allegations that the Colorado Democratic Party is in some ways anti-woman is nothing new, but rather, this is just the latest chapter. No one has forgotten how the “Dean of Colorado’s Democratic delegation” Rep. Dianne Degette got passed over for the open Senate seat that was appointed to a relatively unknown guy at the time, Michael Bennet, certainly not Dean Degette.

Even with rumblings of a women revolt from within his ranks, Palacio is still focusing on spinning the results of last Tueday. But, even Marcus can’t buy into his false spin of breaking the Republican wave, as Marcus himself writes:

The effort to replace Palacio comes following an election in which Democrats lost many key races. One of the only bright spots for Democrats was the re-election of Gov. John Hickenlooper. [the Peak’s emphasis]

We hope Colorado Democrats keep Palacio around for a long time, as his definition of victory for Colorado Democrats is very much something we here at the Peak could get behind.

Endangered Democrat Cheri Jahn offered an interesting answer in The Denver Post‘s candidate voter guide. Apparently Sen. Cheri Jahn (D-Sweet Ridge) doesn’t pay attention to the bills Morgan Carroll she votes for or against. Long-time legislator Cheri Jahn, who was first elected way back in 2001, was asked “What is the first law you would change in Colorado if you could?” Her answer:

“I would repeal the business personal property tax. Colorado is one of only a handful of states that still has this archaic tax on the books. The law taxes Colorado businesses year-after-year on every asset they possess. This discourages new businesses from entering Colorado and current businesses from expanding and purchasing additional assets. Repealing the law would create many new jobs throughout the state.”

Perfectly reasonable, except for one thing: Senator Jahn was a key vote to kill the very law she advocates.

“A Wheat Ridge Democrat who had been a reliable vote to curb the state’s business personal-property tax surprised Republicans on Thursday when she voted against a bill to slowly phase out the tax on new-equipment purchases.”

Senator Jahn used the oldest Democratic refrain in the book – “it’s for the CHILDREN…” but based on Colorado Democrats increasing school funding by only 4% over the past four years (vs. 80% explosion in Obamacare spending) it’s hard to see that children are really a high priority for them. Unless they are protesting, of course.

The fact is, this was another case of her party telling Senator Jahn what to do. For all of the propaganda about being independent, she voted 98% of the time with Morgan Carroll and Rollie Heath. When needed this year, in an 18-17 Senate, she never once stood up as the 18th vote against her party to defeat a bill. Peak readers may even remember how the Senate President whipped her members into voting as she ordered. Too bad an “independent” like Cheri Jahn couldn’t stand up to her own party.

One wonders if Senator Jahn has been so traumatized by her party that she forgot how she personally killed a bill that she now lists as her top priority.

Politics 101: No matter how bad the news is, trying to hide it or cover it up will only make it ten times worse. And, what was once a lost battle quickly explodes into a lost war. Sen. Mark Udall’s campaign never learned this lesson.

In one of the chintzier tactics we’ve seen in Colorado’s Senatorial race, Udall’s campaign today had the audacity to believe they could release two different fundraising numbers combined together, and that no one would notice. Hey, amateurs, we noticed.

Knowing they had already been outraised by Gardner $4.35M to $4M, Udall’s campaign tried to pull a fast on and tack on money that is never included in fundraising totals to reach $4.5M. If this “other money” is included, Gardner himself raised $4.75M. So which way does the Udall campaign want to get beat? The traditional, standard way where Udall loses $4.35M to $4M? Or, Udall’s new “creative accounting” where they lose $4.75M to $4.5M, but also have the stink of desperation wafting off of him so strongly that he’s quickly becoming the New Jersey to Gardner’s NYC.

Sure, the slight confusion Udall’s campaign caused, might have prevented the tweets from blaring out “GARDNER OUTRAISES UDALL!” but by the time undecided voters get home to watch the news tonight or read the papers tomorrow the headline will now be “UDALL LIES ABOUT FUNDRAISING NUMBER!” The former may get us #copolitics junkies all hot and bothered, but it’s the latter that will make undecideds take notice.

Now to Udall’s campaigns credit, their tactic worked… for all of two minutes. KDVR’s Eli Stokols hunger to be the A-Rod to Lynn Bartels’ Jeter in the world of Colorado political reporting, obliged Udall’s campaign’s cheap tactics with a tweet trumpeting Udall raising $4.5M. Stokols will be kicking himself for that one as Udall’s campaign left a meatball over the plate for Stokols to tee off on. With just a few more minutes of questioning the numbers Udall released, Stokols could have broken a story that would now be echoing around the country.

As it stands, things are going so bad for Udall’s campaign that even the thought of losing a fundraising battle to Gardner pushes them to extraordinary measures of resorting to “creative accounting.” Cleary things are not well in Udall-land if the best spin they can come up with involves fudging the fundraising numbers. No, things are so bad for them that they literal feel they cannot lose one more media cycle and have any hopes of surviving.

The desperation for Sen. Mark Udall, his campaign, and the Colorado Left is palpable. Desperate to feel any sort of positive momentum after a month filled with set-back after set-back after set-back, the Colorado Left felt the best use of their time was to disregard the rules of The Denver Post debate and heckle from the audience. Then again, that must feel a lot better than having door after door slammed in your face, or phone after phone hung up on you when Coloradans realize you represent the most cynical campaign in Colorado history.

With all signs pointing up for him, Rep. Cory Gardner had no reason to come out and try to win the debate, when a tie would suit him just fine. But, win it he did. Sen. Mark Udall spent the night claiming he wants to run on his record, but doesn’t quite understand his 99% voting record is pretty much the most literal way one should interpret his words.

To say Udall is improving at debates, is to say the Cuban ski team is getting better. Surely, if Udall is such a master of debating now, he’ll gladly join Gardner at some of the other near dozen debates Gardner committed to that Udall refused to. We do not know how much people can claim Udall is improving at debates when he says in all seriousness that he was only trying to be funny when he said the White House fears him when he walks across the South Lawn. If that’s the case, Udall clearly needs to cut back on the botox because his face is in the perpetual “blue steel” look whether he is joking or politicizing yet another tragedy for his personal political ambitions.

The fact is this debate hasn’t changed anything. Udall still can’t explain how he is an independent voice for Colorado when he has been rubber stamping everything President Obama and Harry Reid send his way. To distract and hide from that record (we’ve noticed the Udall campaign trying to make this their campaign slogan against Udall… Pro tip: don’t make your main attack about distracting and hiding from one’s record, when that is the entire strategy of your campaign!), Udall once again resorted to saying “personhood” no less than three dozen times.

If Udall keeps having more desperate debates like this, we wouldn’t be surprise if his campaign staff start asking themselves if it’d just be kinder to take him out back than have him suffer through another one.

Tonight, Sen. Mark Udall will face Colorado Rep. Cory Gardner in a Denver Post debate. Since Udall has repeatedly ducked Coloradans, there are some questions we have for him that we hope The Denver Post will ask tonight. Here goes (in no particular order):

Why do you accept support Governor Hickenlooper’s controversial decision to grant Nathan Dunlap a temporary reprieve?

Why did you deny saying fracking ‘keeps us locked in the old system’ when it’s documented in an audio recording?

You’ve said you support a carbon tax, what exact price would you put on carbon?

Why do you believe that ISIS does not pose an ‘imminent’ threat to our nation? Is it because you missed 64% of public hearings of Armed Services Committee meetings and all public hearings on emerging threats?

Why did you lie to the Rocky Mountain News about your arrest record?

Why won’t you debate on network TV?

Why won’t you support Keystone XL, even though it would provide jobs and energy independence to Colorado?

Do you support your donor Tom Steyer’s past water grab as outlined by former U.S. Sen. Allard?

Do you owe Coloradans an apology for lying when you said that they would be able to keep their plans?

You recently highlighted helping ski resorts gain the ability to use lands all year round as your biggest accomplishment. What piece of legislation have you passed that will actually help hard-working, middle-class Coloradans?

These are tough questions, but the final question is whether The Denver Post will have the cojones to ask them.